Malcolm X

Good evening once again. It has been some time since I wrote my last entry, but what can you do - living in Caracas is a busy and hectic affair. That´s why I enjoy even the smallest moment of relaxation.

By the way, I love movies. Whether in the cinema or on TV or on DVD, it doesn´t matter - I´m in for most of them. I can watch some movies repeatedly, enjoying the "aha" moment, certain scenes, certain memorized quotes etc.. For me, watching a good movie is pure relaxation, whether on my own or in company.

If you are a TV addict, living in Venezuela means you´ve got to have cable. Otherwise, receiving the local TV station like Televen, Venevisión and the notorious fighting duo VTV and Globovisión will bring you the sudden cadenas or "chained" broadcasts, in which the President will take hours of your idle time to open a dairy factory somewhere on the plains, or preside over the graduation of hundreds of eager beaver students, and take his time to sing, dance, recite poems, be applauded over and over again in the best Kim Il-Yong fashion by red-shirted people, and explain to you and me, in hours-long, almost endless rhethoric repetitions why He is good and the "others" are bad. Apart from the fact that his speeches are more and more like faded carbon copies of each other, his stentorian ranting gives me a headache after approx. 10 minutes. Chávez is like certain strong drinks: don´t drink it all down in a gulp, but sip it, and sigh now and then.

Last week all records of his 10-year regime were broken when he gave a seven-and-a-half-hour non-stop monologue during the New Year parliamentary session. All ministers, red-shirted parliamentaries and invited members of the corps diplomatique were, so I suppose, sitting with crossed legs and with anguished faces, not having anything to drink, to eat or even being able to go to the toilet. Even more: this marathonic session was put on all public TV and radio stations, depriving very annoyed housemothers of their eveningly soaps or telenovelas. In fact, many cacerolazos or beating of pots and pans as a sign of protest were heard in various areas of Caracas. I tuned in on three separate occasions to check whether El Presidente was finished, and during those three times - to my big surprise - he talked about the miracles of the Barrio Adentro mission. Rather monothematic, I thought by myself. Hardly a word about the economic hurricane approaching the country with mathematical certainty, not a single word about the Real Problems harrassing the country - like the horrific insecurity, the galloping corruption and the growing unemployment. To El Presidente, these things do not exist and are mere inventions of the CIA-operated media wanting to put his Revolution into discredit. Chávez dixit.

So, in order to avoid those political things at a time you want to relax, you get cable TV. One channel which I like is the History one, and this afternoon I enjoyed once more the movie Malcolm X with Denzel Washington. Great movie, a cinematographic monument to a man who like Nelson Mandela, began as a person believing in violence to save people, and ended as a apostle of peace, understanding and a strong sense of the brotherhood of man that binds us all on this planet.

I thought, maybe if Ché Guevara, the Prophet of Leftist Hatred, had lived long enough, he would have given his ill-fated revolt a better, cleaner turn. As we know, even Fidel Castro grew more cautious, more balanced over the years. Maybe if Venezuela lets Hugo Chávez rule as Beloved President and Commander till his 75th birthday, as he so much wants it..... maybe we would meet a different, more cautious, less foul-mouthed ruler who is more concerned about social matters and less about the Everduring Battle against the US Empire. Age makes wiser, who knows.

But that, my friends, is an entirely different story. Sleep well, and till soon!